Garden Chair

I cobbled this chair from a Michael Fortune design. The slats and armrests were made with 1/8” strips re-sawn from 8/4 mahogany stock. The strips glued and forced around a bending form (picture 2/3). The chair is held together with #8 wood screws of various lengths. The bungs were glued in place with Titebond III. I finished the chair with Semco Teak Sealer, an oil-based product that we used on our boat’s brightwork. Semco held up very well under the tropical sun, and best of all, did not require sanding prior to a semiannual reapplication.

The only glitch: After sanding, the seam between the wood and the bungs was nearly invisible. But the sealer left a noticeable ring around the bung. Can anyone offer a remedy for the next chair?

Great job on this chair! I was just looking at the article in FWW the other day. That’s a lot of resawing! You are braver than I am using Mahogany. I think I would have tried with a less expensive wood like maybe poplar. How long did it take to make the chair. It seems to me that there are many many hours of work just in resawing and gluing up the strips. With all the curves and angles in this chair, I do not think this is an easy project and you did very well—congrats!

Thanks for the kudos. But much of the praise must go to Michael Fortune’s exceptional plans. To answer your questions:

first, to be honest, I’m using Philippine Mahogany (AKA Luan). Luan is less expensive, has half the density of Honduran mahogany, and weathers the rainy Pacific Northwest climate. In addition, I wanted to finish the wood wIth a more or less clear sealer, and that decision took poplar out of the money.

The first chair took 29 days to complete, which included the time to build the bending forms. And because I only made two forms, one for the armrests and one for the seat and back slats, so each glue up took a day. The second chair only took 19 days.

Awesome work Paul. I am so jealous of all the clamps that you now have. Totally worth doing this project if you can end up with all those great clamps. As you can see by the responses, your other posting mishap was an aberration, not the norm for this group of woodworkers. How many chairs will you be making? It’s nice that I will have a comfortable chair to relax in the nest time I visit. Well done my friend.